How To Convert Your eBook Into A Super Cool Online Tutorial

I have the extreme pleasure to announce that today starts my exciting series of guest bloggers on my blog.

This year, I have planned on having one guest each month for at least one of the 3 categories of my blog, so you can expect many more to follow throughout the year.

Few days ago, as I was putting my thinking hat on to come up with ways to introduce each blogger, I came up with the idea of creating a personalize quote for each of my guests. What better way to introduce their name and some of their qualities?

So, here we go…

“Mix knowledge, skill, accuracy and love for the detail, and you get Mi Muba. A talented blogger who writes step by step articles to teach you how to make money with your blog.”

Mi Muba is a product creator and teaches his readers how to make money with their blogs.

Here he is…

You’re not too happy with the results you’ve got with your eBook, or maybe it’s been a while since you’ve published it.

So, now you want another product for your readers, but you don’t want to do the same thing all over again.

You want to offer a different product with the potential of getting a huge response from your visitors.

In this post of more than 2,000 words I will tell you how to completely your already published eBook and make it a super cool online tutorial.

Don’t worry, I am not going to advise you to do extensive research, more writing, or redesigning of your product.

I will show you how to add value to your content and create an online tutorial.

You may be wondering why you should read this post if you haven’t even written an eBook yet, but don’t worry, you can pick the most popular posts of your blog of the same topic and put them in logical order to create such product.

Yes, you can use your blog content to create your eBook by following the stops of this post and convert your product into a hot seller.

Why most eBooks are Boring?

eBooks are generally created with text content. They lack diversity. The content is mostly static in nature without any element of much interest.

First off, Infographics can be inserted into your eBook, but this trend is still uncommon.

Secondly, it is very easy to write an eBook by simply converting some of the content of your blog into a PDF file.

You can use MS Paint to create your eBook title, showcase it on your blog, and sell it.

Actually, selling your eBook is more appealing than giving it away for free.

Why an Online Tutorial would be Interesting?

People love to get information with diverse contents, and want to enjoy learning with it.

An online tutorial can’t be created directly with a few blog posts. You need to entirely change the formatting, the presentation and include interacting sections to make it a cool online tutorial.

An online tutorial never leaves the student alone because of its interactive nature. You can ask questions at the end of the each chapter. Repeat the main points by summarizing them, and offer diversity by offering videos, audios, presentations and infogrpahics .

The most important feature of a tutorial is its engaging power. It’s so much more interesting, that you not only read it, but get involved with it.

You can also avail the option of follow-up with the subscribers within your customer care activities.

Being in constant connection with them, allows you to sell more of your products to them as well.

Steps to Convert an eBook into an Online Tutorial

No rocket science is involved to convert your eBook into an online tutorial. You don’t need any software to do this task.

You can easily convert your eBook into a tutorial. A little knowledge is sufficient to do this and create one more product for your blog without creating any primary content for it.

Step One: Convert your PDF into Text

If you already have a Word file of your eBook, that’s fine, but you need to convert it into a text file for editing and formatting it in order to change it into a tutorial.

Open your eBook into Adobe Reader and go to File and Save As PDF file as a text file into your selected folder. Do its basic formatting in MS word to clear line and paragraph breaks, and delete unnecessary words of the header and footer.

Then remove the images from it, if any, because it’s wise to put fresh images in your tutorial

Step Two: Format the Text

Shorten the lengthy paragraphs without trimming the message to make them easy to understand and better fit for a tutorial (not an eBook).

Divide the text into sub chapters

Longer chapters are OK for an eBook, but for an online tutorial frequent pauses are good to make the readers free from the stress of concentrating for long.

Write a summary after each sub chapter

Maximum ease is the biggest charm of an online tutorial, so help the student revise what they’ve learned.

Put Multiple Choice Questions after each chapter:

Create 10 to 15 questions, depending on the length of each chapter, and mention one correct answer and three incorrect answers against each question, and ask your student to give the correct answer.

This test will help them retain the info much better.

Give the correct answer at the end of the tutorial to let them know how many answers they answered correctly.

Include a case study after each chapter: It should be related to the topic of the chapter. It may be an imaginary or real life one, and should make the student bring one of the best solutions for a given problem in the case study. It helps students know how much they have learned from the chapter.

Write a self assessment section after each quarter of the eBook: Like a terminal exam, it’s good to help your student review their progress after reading a quarter of the tutorial. Quarterly test should be question-answer based, not multiple choices.

Create an introductory video of the tutorial: This could work both for the sales page of your tutorial as well as the course itself. You may offer it along with the content of the tutorial as a separate video file, or you can put a link with the title image of the video withing the content, and display the video on the media section of your blog.

Create a podacast narrating the summary of whole tutorial: Many people would rather listen than read, because they can do something else as they learn.

Create a presentation to summarize the whole tutorial: It’s very important that the student is able to review what they’ve learned by revising with the help of a presentation.

Branding of your tutorial: This is the most important step. It’s called the branding of your tutorial. I suggest you do this at the end of your entire formatting to select a title covering all the aspects of your tutorial.

For example, if the name of your eBook is: “A Complete Guide To Create A Successful Blog.” Convert it as “An Advance System To Make A Blog Like A Pro”.

Create the title image of your tutorial: If you have basic designing skills, create the title image yourself . Or you could hire a designer from Fiverr to do this task for you. It’s a must that you create an image to show on your sales page, at the side bar of your blog, and in your product’s review.

The title image must reflect the type of the product and its main features.

Put all content in a zip file to send it to its buyers: This is called packaging. It lightens the total weight of all files to easily attach it to an email and send it to your customers after payment.

Step Three: Sell the Product

Pick a selling option: Once you’ve created your own product by converting it from an eBook into an online tutorial, you need to sell it to run your blogging business. Manufacturing is only half of the work, the most important part is to sell your product.

First of all, you need to decide if you want to sell your online tutorial with any or all of the following options:

At your own blog directly with both retail and wholesale options: Selling your product directly from your blog is the most profitable, but also a risky option.

You can save the commission which otherwise you would have to pay to a third party for selling your product. But you can’t promote your product on your blog as well as you could through affiliates or any third party.

Wholesale means creating your own affiliate program with the help of a software like affiliateproscript dot com. You can register bloggers and online marketers under it and they sell your product on their blog and social media for a commission.

Through third party or Affiliates like Amazon and Clickbank: Affiliates platforms can help you sell your products directly on their sites and through their online agents on commission basis. They usually charge a higher commission rate, but in the beginning it’s wise to sell your product through a third party because of their popular image make it easier for you.

Create a sales page of your online tutorial: The best option to create a sales page for your online tutorial is to do it yourself.

Simply create a page and add a demo video, testimonials, payment option and images of the product. All you need to do this are the same basic skills you’re using to create a page on your blog.

The other option is to create it with a template. Several free online sales page templates are available online.

Step 4: Make Online Sales to Promote of your Product

Before marketing your product online you need to create a sales page promotion to make people buy your product.

Offer a 15 minute assessment/review: This is an incentive to convince people that you will not leave them alone once they buy your product, by assuring them that you will offer an assessment/review once your student completes the whole tutorial. This is a follow-up action to stay connected with the buyer, and better be able to sell them more products in the future.

Issue a certificate with your signature to successful candidates: For those who pass your online assessment test, issue them an online certificate.

You can design a certificate with MS Paint by including your logo, details of the course, and the name of the candidate.

This will enhance the image of your product, and will be evidence to the student of his successful completion of your course.

Step 5: Market your Product Online

Take multiple steps to market your product with different online marketing tools including:

Add a banner ad on the sidebar of your blog

Write a product review on your blog

Invite others to write reviews on their blogs for pay or for free

Write guest posts on other blogs related to the niche of your tutorial

Send emails to subscribers offering them a special discount for your product

Organize a webinar to sell your tutorial. Just search the term “how to organize a webinar” on Google, and you will find all the info you need. This, actually creates a direct contact with potential buyers to finally convince them to buy your product.

Keep updating your online tutorial as needed

This is the whole process of converting your eBook into a very interesting and best-selling online tutorial.

I have concisely described the last step of online marketing, since many blogs out there have already fully explained those steps.

Are you planning on converting your eBook into an exciting online tutorial?

Just ask me if you have any questions, in your comment below.

I am sure you will share this post with your friends on social media to let them equally enjoy its benefits.

39 Comments

You know, as I just mentioned on your own latest post, I still have to get started with my ebook, finding time for which is something I still need to do. But once that’s done, this would be the next step. Never thought that one could create an online tutorial, as you mentioned.

I am just bookmarking this page to refer to later, you know, when I really get down to creating my own ebook and tutorials – when, don’t ask!! For now the ABC (as you already know Mi Muba) keeps me on my toes, but it’s certainly on my agenda.

It’s so great to receive the first welcoming remarks by none other than a commenting queen at Sylviane’s blog.

Your consisent support and guidance at each step is a big asset for me and am proud to be in your friends’ network.

A few people blog such amazingly they don’t need urgently a blogging product because the quality of their posts and power of their networking already give them a big support which a product otherwise can do.

I wonderf if without offering an incentive to build your email list you have such a huge fan following what would be the response level if you would have the one.

Your appreciation for the idea of this post means it is really going to solve a big problem of those who just have an ebook to offer and no more products.

First of all thanks a lot for giving me an honor to be featured as guest author at your great blog.

It’s always been great pleasure to be in connect with you as you know I am regular visitor of your awesome blog.

The idea of this post made me to share it at a widely popular blog to let more and more people take its benefit. I am glad I got this opportunity to share it here.:-)

Once again I appreciate your support as you have always been a great inspiration to me in terms of your consistently blogging for more than four years and venturing into multiple niches at a time that itself is a heck of the task.

I first time visit on Sylviane’s blog and see you here. Its a great time for me to read this useful topic. Everyone just think a ebook just as a usual book but your ideas says a lot more. You described very well how we can convert a ebook in tutorial book and I think tutorials are more needed that an ebook.

Hi Mi Muba,
This is my first visit on your site and really got so impressed.
What a useful and informative post indeed.
I am sure many people will take advantages of your blog.
Thanks for sharing..please keep posting…table for dining

Welcome to Sylviane’s blog and that’s so cool that you are her first official guest. Congratulations and you’ve done her blog justice with this post.

Wow, that was a great explanation of how to really outline the book if you want to turn it into a tutorial. Of course I don’t really have any eBooks to sell, for the most part I’ve only created reports to give away to my list.

So many people have told me I should take some of my blog posts and put them in a book to sell but that’s not exactly the direction I’m eager to venture into. You know, we all enjoy doing certain things and I don’t want to get stuck selling eBooks. I’ll leave that up to Ryan! LOL!!!

This is good to know though for anyone eager to venture this way. I’ve been taught to never say never. There are a few things I can definitely say never too but I’ll try to keep an open mind where this is concerned.

Thanks for this post and your fabulous explanation. I’ll be sure to share it again and you both have a wonderful week.

Yes, Mi is my first guest this year, and I’m excited to know that I’m booked until May now. How nice it is for me to know that I’ll have regular bloggers doing some of the work for me, but yet again I already have two guest posts for other blogs in the oven, so I guess the Universe is trying to equalize me 🙂 I think that it’s going to be an exciting blogging year.

I’m glad you enjoyed Mi’s tutorial here, and I hope this can help people who have been wanting to create tutorials, but were wondering how.

Welcome to Sylviane’s blog. You really done your due diligence in explaining how to convert an ebook into an online tutorial. I have written an ebook that I’d like to update and you have given me some ideas of what I can do to make it a bit more interesting to read. But I do plan on writing another one of becoming a great blogger. I’m getting more comfortable in doing videos so this would be something great to add to what I want to do! Thanks for sharing! Take Care Mi Muba and Sylviane!sherman smith invites you to read..To Do List For The New Year

That’s really a great pleasure for me to be the first guest author at Sylviane’s blog and more pleased to learn from your latest post that you also be gracing it with your guest post.

It depends upon the expertise level of bloggers either they simply compile already published posts as their ebook or try the new one. In the beginning bloggers have more work load of promotion and building community so the better option is to compile the ebook instead of writing the new. Their ultimate aim should be to convert their visitors with an incentive.

This is my viewpoint and for gem of bloggers like you this idea may sound not so impressive because they have lot more to deliver to their readers as you did by releasing your first product that is unique and is poised to break the records of popularity.

I always appreciate your honest views on my blog and now on my guest post as well and they means a lot to me as I learn a lot from them to improve me further.

Before I got into blogging, I created eBooks and courses … and actually I still have them there, but they’re primarily used on another site I operate. I’ve yet to come up with an eBook for my blog though.

I know many people have said that I probably should come out with a product/eBook this year and I’ve been thinking about it, but I really like your idea of just doing an online tutorial instead.

What’s even better is that I like the fact that I can just do it based on some blog posts I write.

I have some pretty “good” blog posts that I want to come out with that could definitely be used as online tutorials, so I’ll have to consider that.

eBooks are a great way to have a product to sell and I thought of doing that in the initial days of my blogging unless I decided to keep my focus on service area. So, I decided to keep my blog for my personal branding perspective while I continue to build my service portfolio.

This year, my focus is still going to be on hosting, web development, SEO and SMM services as this has been my strength and I have seen a lot of traction in the past year through these services.

However, launching some ebooks and selling tutorials is something on my bucket list for 2016 and beyond for sure.

Thank you for this great tutorial as usual. Great to see you doing so great as time progresses!

And what a wonderful way to turn an ebook into a fantastic product. I’m not a big fan of ebooks…only some that will give me specific information on something I need. But I do find them to be difficult to follow. Sometimes not of much use at all. Guess this is why I never wrote one!

I do prefer digital products whereby there is a series of tutorials people can follow and then follow up with a Q & A. Or have it on it’s own site where people can interact with me. I have built a site like that and it’s working well so far.

I can see how valuable it is to turn an ebook into another product and you make it so easy to do.

And I can relate to this because it’s more or less exactly what I did. I turned my eBook into a video course. I converted the text into slides, and then narrated over the slides, also including some over the shoulder type videos of the theory being put into practice. I use Screenflow, Keynote to record the slides, and then secure it with wishlist. It allows me to sell for 3 times the amount of the eBook because of the massive perceived value.

You are right people engaged in promoting their brand with a blog remain so busy doing their main business and hardly have time to create subsidiary products at their blog to boost conversion. They mainly blog to send customers to their key business.

In that sense for personal bloggers like me offering a product is must because for us our main business itself is blogging and selling through it. That is why instead of writing an ebook it is better to plan from the start to create an advance level product and tutorial is one of them.

As with some of your other commenters, I don’t think the idea of writing an eBook appeals to me either (I’ve read too many and have not been impressed). However, I could possibly see myself writing some sort of tutorial one day, as I know it’s something I can do.

Your tips will be very useful for reference. You’ve done so well in coming up with money-making ideas. The exact skills that I need!

I do agree with you anything with one-sided activity does not have element of interest and usually such products fail to serve the people.

Interactive products have the power of engaging people and then converting them into loyal customers. That is why instead of simply creating an ebook it is wise to add interactive segments as you mentioned to make it a perfect digital product.

This post is packed full of great info if you want to easily create an eBook. I’ve actually been thinking of using some old blog posts and expanding on them but you’re letting me know I can just use the same post. Great info.

It sounds so simple and the steps you’ve provided are easy to follow.

Great posts and just what I needed. Was just talking about this today with someone. Law of attraction. 😉

So glad you’re having a regular flow of guest writers, Sylviane, that’s awesome, and I really look forward to learning from your guests.

Wow! What an excellent article, Mi! Talk about a comprehensive guide, super duper content! Thanks so much for sharing this. Bookmarking for sure.

Was thinking about my podcast, and the suggestion was made to me to use my blog post content for the podcast. In other words, to have a blogcast. I’m still deciding on that, but had never really considered using my blog post to compile an e-book before. So you’ve really got me thinking now.

Your point about formatting being important and seeing how you go into detail about it, makes me glad because this is something that is extremely important to me.

Your suggestion about multiple-choice questions after each chapter is an excellent one and ensures engagement. Love it!

Case studies are so very powerful, and I need to do these on a regular basis. I have a lot of testimonies, results, Etc. but getting them documented and in an organized fashion to become content that’s consumable in the form of a case study is easier said than done. Especially when you’re not planning to document results before taking the action steps. lol That’s been my downfall.

While I do video, mastermind coaching sessions, etc. for my students in my MasterMind Coaching membership, I could possibly use your tips for my blog community.

Definitely sharing this resource with my friends… Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.

While I’ve always had guests on my blogs, that’s the first time I have them scheduled and I have them booked until the middle of the year already. I will take care of the second part of the year later.

I think podcasts are becoming more and more popular, so that’s why I am going to start doing that too. I going to have a very cool one coming up soon 😉

Just popping over from Richard’s blog as this was recommended read for January. I’m so glad to have finally made it here because this was on my ‘to visit’ list and Mi Muba is a name I keep see cropping up in the blogosphere.

I really liked the idea of converting your eBook into an online course and that is definitely something I will put on my project list. You gave us some clear instructions here Mi and I like the way you introduced end of topic questions – this is a good learning aid.

I am so humbled to hear your great words. It is because of the wonderful feedback of my good friends and awesome readers I get so happy to interact actively with more and more people. I just followed you at Kingged and glad to see you here now.